


Role-Playing Matters

by houjunmai



Series: Fanfic Realm AU [4]
Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Crack, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2018-12-21 05:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11937393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houjunmai/pseuds/houjunmai
Summary: Nino steals a laptop for Jun, and the whole band gets addicted to Tumblr.





	Role-Playing Matters

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for Nino’s 29th birthday, originally posted on LJ in 2012 and reposted here on AO3 for MatsuJun’s 34th along with the other Fanfic Realm AU works. Set after the events in The Other Green Room and Kids These Days.

**— » — « —**

One would not have to be so bold as to say that the Arashi members were already bored to tears on a certain Friday afternoon in the Realm of Fanfiction, well after finishing fifty-eight different fan fiction updates; of which eighteen were full-length, five-thousand-word chapters, thirty-five were one-shots, and five were epilogues,—all in varying genre and levels of writing proficiency—aptly (though unoriginally) summarized in Ninomiya Kazunari’s words as “all in a day’s work”. The beginning of the month instantly fell on a typical pace, averaging from fifty to sixty chapters per day, and not more than system-generated notices from the JE Department peppered their Other Green Room mail.

At first, the members were keen on discussing their workload: debating on possible conclusions of the thrilling Stories they encountered for the day, or ranting on the not-so-welcome clichés, and even making bets on who’s going to end up with whom on their more recent, convoluted love stories. But as soon as Aiba Masaki went off exploring the hallways of the Realm once again, the rest, who did not share the same adventurous spirit apart from when visiting their fictional children, had also decided to look for other forms of amusement for their own.

Ohno Satoshi, greatly influenced by their latest roles as progressive metal band members, found himself listening more to Dream Theater, from whose music the Story was largely based. He would randomly belt out the song lyrics, with one time utterly startling Sakurai Sho, who was then about to achieve the culminating event of his newfound fascination for dominoes. He had diligently worked on and successfully completed a truly ambitious design, preparing to capture on video the moment of collapse, but Ohno’s outburst of a particularly high note disrupted his rhythm and made him collapse the entire thing before he got to press the record button.

It was entrenched in the four other member’s memories how Sho howled for precisely nine minutes and thirty-three seconds, beating by a mere second the length of the Dream Theater song with which Ohno surprised him. Nino later noted aside to Matsumoto Jun that Sho had also beat the unlucky note by a full octave, probably by far the highest note reached by an Arashi member. But it was pretty much the end of any other Dream Theater and domino-related activity for the two eldest, though.

Jun, for his part, felt inspired to start writing his own brand of fiction. While it was mostly assumed that he would take up writing fanfiction within the Realm of Fanfiction, Jun actually became more inclined to role-playing with other characters and Realm denizens, using the Realm’s Tumblr network as the platform for their creative endeavour. He found out by accident when randomly surfing the network using his laptop—stolen for him by Nino from as peace offering when the gamer accidentally spilled tea on Jun’s story drafts—and after asking anonymous questions on one role-play community, he decided to try it.

Ever since then, he would spend the whole afternoon just writing and plotting anonymously with other anonymous beings, or sometimes confirmed Mary Sues and Jdrama Department staff. Jun was careful not to let anyone except the admins know of his identity, using screen names for protection against known Sues.

Intrigued at how it got their youngest member addicted, Nino, Sho, and Aiba created their own covert Tumblr accounts, at first only to follow Jun’s progress with his characters. Later on, they decided to join in the role-play hullabaloo when an exclusive RP community opened; reserved only for Japanese celebrities and unknown to Mary Sues and Gary Stus. Nino even finally got Ohno to apply for a mafia boss character in the said community, only so they could use Nakai Masahiro as face claim and annoy their JE sempai. It gets all of them doubled over with nerdy giggle fits every time Ohno posted something highly witty and appropriate with the SMAP leader’s GIF expressions.

After the rest got the hang of things, they started anonymously joining other non-exclusive communities in Tumblr. Some of the role-play communities they joined even had chat rooms for the role-players to chill and plot and get to know one another. The problem then began of all five of them needing to use the laptop, so Nino and Aiba scrupulously pilfered several more from Stories so that all of them could have something to use for role-play purposes. The matter did not escape the JE Department, however, and Arashi’s Other Green Room became notorious for missing electronic equipment. The boys were actually given permission to use the units, as Nino later found out that there was only the need to send a letter of request for equipments if they needed it, which Sho immediately furnished out of slight guilt for his bandmates’ actions and to salvage their reputation in general.

Gathered around the coffee table on that certain Friday afternoon, the Arashi members were all updating their Tumblr role-play accounts with the exception of Aiba, who had gone out to explore. Nino was currently browsing for new Toda Erika GIFs to add to his collection—Erika being his character Fujimiya Miwako’s face claim—because he had found himself already repeating several photos in his latest GIF posts with the Mary Sue who was using Matsuda Shota for her character, Shiba Mamoru. Ohno was stalking some of the characters that, according to the site plot, needed to interact with his other mafia boss character (he seemed to have developed a penchant for role-playing mafia bosses), in order to instil the proper level of intimidation and fear that the character required. And Sho, who was addicted to paragraph posting as much as Jun was, was writing a newspaper article for his journalist character.

“Who is this Ueno Kou dude?” Nino had asked, peering at the screen of Jun’s laptop as he went back to the sofa, having gone to the kitchen to refill the teapot for all of them.

“Uh…, mine,” Jun answered a little distractedly, typing a reply to a post.

“Why are you using Oguri Shun as face claim?” Nino asked, scratching his head in confusion. He had taken his place beside Jun and proceeded to fill his bandmate’s cup, seeing it was empty. “I thought you said you’re sticking with me as face claim for every character in every RP?”

“Yes, but I need to pay Shun back for using ME as his character’s face claim,” Jun answered, a sinister gleam was in his eyes as he submitted his post. “Don’t worry, Kazu, you’re still my main character in this one. I’m only using Shun to troll the Mary Sues,” he added, raising his teacup to his bandmate in thanks before taking a satisfied sip.

“Look,” Ohno said suddenly, similarly checking posts with his account. “Aiba just replied. I thought he’s out?”

“Yeah, but he said he’s visiting the kids, so maybe he’s posting from the connection there,” Nino answered. He sighed as he placed the teapot down, then stretching his arms and legs, “I give up. I need more Erika-chan GIFs. Hey J, do you know how to make GIFs?”

“I tried, but I take too long,” Jun answered, going back to his laptop to switch accounts. “You could ask the graphics expert on this community, he’s a Realm tech, and he takes GIF requests from role-players.”

“Neat. I’ll go ask. Thanks.”

“No problem. Uh, Kazu…?”

“Yep…?”

Jun was frowning on his screen. “Why are people calling you ‘Tiffany’ on chat?”

“Err…well, that’s what I randomly came up with yesterday when they asked for my name,” Nino answered, a bit sheepishly.

“Why would you give a name like that?” Sho asked, pausing from his writing. But Jun then interjected, “I thought you’re supposed to be Donnatello?”

“I slipped,” Nino replied, pouting, “because this Sue Naoko-chan that I’m role-playing with kept on pestering me with actual details, so I had to pretend I’m also a Sue…from Hollywood. She didn’t buy the neutral nickname that I initially put on the character application form.”

“So everyone thinks you’re a Sue?” Ohno clarified.

“With the exception of the admins, pretty much, yeah. I just said I wanted to be called Donnatello because he’s my favourite Ninja Turtle. They thought it was cute.”

Sho laughed. “What’s with you and being a girl?”

“It’s somewhat easy,” Nino shrugged, grinning a little. “I just gush along with the Sues over chat and they think I’m really one of them. It’s the extra research that kills, though. I had to read the whole Wikipedia article on the Ninja Turtles in order to corroborate my story.”

“You better tell Aiba, you know,” Sho advised, “He’s also interacting with Sues, and if he finds them calling you Tiffany instead of Donnatello, there’s a chance he might let it slip that he knows you in person.”

“He doesn’t know I’m Donnatello, so it’s fine,” Nino said. “Actually, I don’t think Aiba signed up in this one. Does anyone know?”

“He’s the vet character, Kurokawa-sensei,” Ohno supplied, “but he’s offline. He must have just quickly logged on to do quick posts.”

“How typical of him to choose a veterinarian,” Sho mused, “You know, I tried to make him join this Prohibition era-based RP community that Ohno and I are in. As my camera man, you see, but he was too lazy to do the proper research.” It was then his turn to stretch his arms and legs, being done with the news article that he needed to post. “Hey, Ohno-san, I’m done with my article and the paragraph with the chief investigator. Want to start on our part of the plot now?”

“Eh? We can’t start on it until the admins give the go signal, can we? I mean, you’re supposed to try cracking that one other kidnap case first.”

“The ones I’m supposed to work on it with are not yet done with their other plot paragraphs. And I was thinking we could just plot on the major paragraph and GIF talk flow for now, and do the real posts later when it’s time,” Sho explained.

“Ahh, sure,” Ohno nodded. “Where do we plot?”

“I’ll make us a separate chat room.”

Nino suddenly growled in frustration. “Stupid Naoko-chan is on chat,” he mumbled angrily, typing furiously on his laptop. After exchanging a few more replies, Nino desperately looked up, about to ask something, but Jun beat him to his own question with the answer.

“If you’re being asked what happens to Sues when they die, tell them you don’t know anything except for the excessive amount of glitter they leave behind,” Jun provided, being logged on the same chat room and having seen Naoko-chan’s question. “At least that’s what one staffer told me.”

“I love you, J. Really,” Nino said as he rushed to type the answer. After a while, Nino was rolling his eyes again. “Damn you, Naoko-chan…,” he muttered over and over again like a chant as he continued to type on the computer.

The Friday afternoon wore on, with the idols quietly resolving their role-play matters, except for occasional mutterings, exclamations, and sinister laughs that obviously indicate plot mischief. Nino was finally relieved from answering Naoko-chan’s somewhat troll-worthy inquiries while they progressed on their GIF talk, and after a while, the idol sighed as he gently closed the laptop’s lid, having replied to all of the threads he was working on and decided to call it a day.

“Hey, guys!” Their attention was briefly engaged when the green room door burst open and in floated Aiba’s head, followed by the appearance of the rest of his body as he removed the Invisibility Cloak. He happily sat on the beanbags as he placed his laptop among that of the others’ on the coffee table.

“Welcome back,” Jun greeted. “How was everyone?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean the kids? Yeah, they’re all great,” Aiba answered, rummaging from a messenger bag and pulling out sheets of paper. “They sent us this week’s artworks,” he said, handing the stuff to Ohno, who was nearest. “Sora sorted everything out, so just pick the bundle with your names on it.”

The idols spent a few minutes appreciating their fictional offsprings’ handiwork, chuckling here and there as they encountered particularly cute or funny pieces and clumsily written dedications. While they were busy, Aiba had opened his laptop and logged on to Tumblr.

“You know what, I learned something interesting today,” Aiba suddenly quipped as he stared at his screen.

“Yeah?” Jun responded distractedly, still smiling at the artworks like the rest.

“Did you know that Mary Sues go in a puff of glitter, like, ‘poof!’ when they die?” he said with genuine wonder. Nino’s whole face instantly twitched, but before he got to say something, Jun cut him off with a meaningful look and replied to Aiba, “Really? Where did you find that out?”

“Well, truth is,” he began sheepishly. “I’m interacting with Sues, and I’m actually pretending to be one of them.”

“You’re not Kurokawa-sensei?” Ohno asked, a little confused.

“I’m Kurokawa-sensei, but I applied for another character so I could role-play with this Donnatello person,” Aiba explained. “And then I made a little slip and everyone thought I was a Sue, so I started pretending to be one. It turns out Donnatello is actually herself a Sue, and she’s from Hollywood even!”

Both Jun and Nino began alternating between coughing and sipping tea, and Aiba worriedly reached over to the smaller man, gently patting his back.

“S-So,” Sho interjected, his face crumpled in a weird expression, “so this Donnatello person, what’s her name?”

“Tiffany,” Aiba answered simply, “and she said she wanted to be called Donnatello because he’s her favourite Ninja Turtle. Anyway, I was chatting with Tiffany earlier today. Since she was a Sue and at the same time I had to know more about Mary Sue stuff so I can pretend better, I asked her lots of questions, and the rest is history!”

Aiba suddenly remembered that he forgot his laptop charger over at the FROOS rooms and went to the staff room to place a request for retrieval, leaving the four others in various states of disbelief. Sho could no longer take it in and laughed so much that he nearly upset his teacup, while Ohno was equally shaking with amusement. Jun tried his very best to maintain a straight face out of concern for Nino, who, at that very moment, wanted to pull his hair out. Or strangle Aiba. Whichever comes first.

“Damn you, Naoko-chan.”

**— » the end « —**

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Arashi. This is a work of fiction, and any similarities to fanfic plots and characters written or unwritten herein mentioned are purely coincidental.


End file.
